A Risky Business Page 6

  Leon quickly shoved a glass of water into her hand, and Merle had to take a large swallow to clear her throat. When she finally gained enough control to look up and glare at him, her face was flushed. 'This table is occupied,' she said coldly.

  'Of course it is. We're sitting here,' Leon said pleasantly. He lifted his hand and motioned to the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee.

  'I was sitting here first. Would you please leave?' Merle demanded through tight lips.

  'No, I feel like having company,' he replied mildly, his attention on the waitress weaving her way through the tables with his coffee. Merle noticed his eyes narrow appreciatively as he scanned the young woman's legs. When the girl reached them, Leon whispered something to her Merle didn't catch. The waitress threw back her head and laughed, winking broadly at him before leaving the table.

  Merle's chest was so tight with anger she could hardly breathe. If he was so hard up for company, why didn't he go chat up the waitress and leave her alone? At least the woman would appreciate his presence. She would have loved to make some cutting remark, but her brain was filled with fury. Digging her nails into the palms of her hands, she had to content herself with a vengeful stare.

  'Have a bad day, Merle?'

  'You know I have,' she choked out.

  His eyebrows lifted and his lips pursed in mock sympathy. 'Poor girl. Well, just tell Uncle Leon all about it.'

  'Is there any need?' she retorted. 'You know what happened. You're the one responsible. You had that guy with that… that beast throw me off his property.'

  'Beast? Oh,' he laughed, 'you mean Laddie Boy? What's the matter, don't you like animals?'

  Merle was absolutely speechless. Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, her head pounded as her blood pressure shot up. If there had been a gun on the table at that moment, she knew she would have used it on him. Anything to wipe that look of gloating from his face.

  Suddenly she knew if she didn't get away from him she would lose complete control. Knowing Leon, it would only add to his amusement if he managed to goad her into creating a public scene. With jerky movements, she stood up, pushing her chair back. Her temper was held by such a fine thread, it was fortunate that she didn't hear his soft chuckle as she stalked away. She would have completely disgraced herself.

  As it was, she almost did, but luckily, regained her sanity before she did something she would have regretted. Leon's Ferrari was parked directly opposite her Blazer in the truckstop parking lot. For one sweet moment, she considered the pleasure of ramming the sports car with her four-wheel drive. The Blazer was sturdily built and wouldn't sustain much damage, especially compared to what would happen to the Ferrari.

  Only when she forced herself to consider the possible consequences of such an action was she able to prevent it. She had underestimated Leon once already, assuming his reasonableness was a sign of weakness. But she didn't think he would remain reasonable if she damaged his precious car. Even though he drove it around on dusty, prairie roads all day, he somehow managed to keep the black paintwork gleaming.

  Rage was still churning through her veins when she got back to the motel a few minutes later. It was unfortunate that Greg Larson had chosen this moment to return and was waiting for her when she reached the door to her room.

  As Merle recognised him leaning against the door to her room, she saw red. She was almost as angry with him as she was with Leon. Since Leon had told her what the geologist had said about her out at the site, she had become conscious of the looks the drillers gave her whenever she went into the truckstop and they were there. So far, none of them had said anything to her, but she expected it was only a matter of time before one of them made a move towards her.

  'What are you doing here?' she demanded aggressively when she reached him.

  Greg looked slightly taken aback, but answered her. 'I came to see you.'

  'And what makes you think I would want to see you?'

  'Merle, what's the matter?' he asked bewildered. 'I thought you would be happy to see me. I wouldn't have left at all except Crane fired me and I had to find another job. I came back because…' he hesitated, then stumbled on, 'you know I love you.'

  'Love me?' Merle scoffed. 'I suppose that's why you spread all those lies about me?'

  His face flamed and he lowered his head to stare at his shoe. 'Merle, I know I… shouldn't have said all those things, but…' He looked up at her, his expression childishly defiant. 'All the guys knew I was dating you. I didn't want them to think that… that you…'

  'So you told them we were having a passionate love affair, is that it?'

  'Oh, Merle, when they found out you were a scout, they started saying the only reason we were going together was because you were trying to get information from me. I knew that wasn't true, but…' Merle's mouth moved impotently. Was he that stupid or did his ego just not allow for rejection? She still hadn't decided which it was, when he continued, '… those guys just wouldn't understand. I'm not blaming you for wanting to wait until after we're married, but most people don't these days and—'

  'After we're what!' Merle interjected, appalled.

  'Well, I know we've never actually talked about it, but it is understood.' He stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. Merle stared at him in frozen disbelief as he smiled at her. 'That's why I'm here. I found another job and I came to get you. I've got the licence with me. Tomorrow, we'll drive into Medicine Hat and get married as soon as the courthouse opens.' When he saw her expression, he quickly added, 'You did say once that you didn't like big weddings, so there's no reason to wait.' He started to move his head to kiss her, and she jerked out of his hold.

  'Oh, no… oh, no,' Merle was shaking her head and raising her hands to ward him off. 'I'm not marrying you. You can forget that idea right now.'

  'Merle, I know you're angry with me about those rumours at the site, but try to understand my position. I had to work with those guys, be one of them. They couldn't understand the type of relationship we have… that a man and a woman can have more than just sex between them. Be fair, Merle. They would have resented me if they had found out the true depth of our feelings for one another.'

  Merle could only stare at him incredulously. He must be mad!

  'But you'll see, once we're married it won't seem important anymore,' he continued. Merle backed against the door to her room, her upraised hands preventing him from taking her in his arms. 'My new job, Merle… it's an office job, I won't have to leave you to go out in the field… they might even be able to find something for you, too. We'll buy a house, you'd like that, wouldn't you? We can be together. We love each other, don't let a little disagreement keep us apart.'

  He made a move towards her, and Merle slipped away from him to stand in the centre of the hall. His eyes pleaded with her to understand as he looked at her.

  Her previous anger was completely buried under an avalanche of remorse. 'I'm very sorry, Greg, but the only reason I was dating you was because you were the field geologist. The men at the site were right; I was just seeing you in order to get information about the well,' she said, totally unable to meet his eyes. Merle had never felt so despicable in her whole life as she saw the colour slowly drain from Greg's face. But he had to know the truth, half measures wouldn't do. After learning that he had actually gone so far as to buy a marriage licence on the basis of their somewhat shaky friendship, she was certain that he would go right on hoping if she tried to let him down easily.

  'But you love me, you must love me,' he insisted, making a movement towards her.

  Merle quickly stepped back. 'No, I'm sorry, I don't. I was just using you.'

  He stared at her for a long minute, his colour returning in a crimson tide. 'You were using me?' he asked harshly, yet his voice still held a tone that pleaded for denial of the truth.

  It was Merle's turn to stare down at her shoe. 'I know it was a rotten thing to do but I didn't realise you were getting in that deep. It's—'

 
'That deep!' he shouted angrily. 'I lost my job on account of you, you bitch! Crane warned me about you, but I was so besotted with you, I didn't want to believe him.' He unleashed a stream of invectives. 'I'm glad I said all those things about you at the site. I'm glad they all think you're a whore. I should never have let you get away with holding me off.'

  Merle cringed in humiliation. She could hear someone moving down the hall towards them and felt sick inside—all they needed was an audience. She looked up, wondering if there was any way of stemming Greg's angry tirade.

  'You're not going to get away with this!' he shouted. His hand shot out and slapped her across the face.

  Merle staggered back under the force of the blow, tears of pain springing to her eyes. Greg looked murderous as he took a step forward, his arm raised to administer another blow. It was caught just as he was swinging it downward.

  'That's enough of that, Larson,' Leon said harshly, pinning Greg's arms behind him. Greg let loose with a string of curses, but Leon held him firmly. 'She isn't worth it, Larson, so calm down. I'm not going to let you beat her up.' Gradually, Greg started to relax, his colour returning to normal. Finally, when he was sure Greg was no longer violent, Leon released him. 'You'd better leave. Go back to Calgary and forget you ever met her. She's not worth going to jail over.'

  Greg eyed him condemningly, then turned to glare at Merle. She shrank under his malevolent stare, his face filled with hate. At last, he turned and stalked away. Merle's eyes followed his retreating back as it moved down the hall, guilt gnawing at her gut. She caught her lip between her teeth. It was all her fault, she should never have let him get that involved.

  'How's your eye?'

  Merle turned to look back at Leon, her hand going to the swelling that was forming at the top of her cheekbone. 'It's okay,' she demurred.

  'You're going to have a shiner.'

  'I suppose I deserve it.' She glanced down the hall to the door Greg had gone through.

  'Probably,' Leon said drily, 'but he shouldn't have done it even so. I don't have much respect for a man who hurts women.' Her eyes flew to his, finding them unreadable. 'You should put some ice on that,' he advised, then turned and walked off, disappearing into a door at the end of the hall near the vending machines.

  Over the next week, Merle devoted herself to her job, trying to get that ugly scene with Greg out of her mind. At first it wasn't easy to banish the terrible guilt she felt about the way things had turned out, but as the week wore on, her job and the problems she was encountering drove everything else from her mind. Leon was not just making it difficult to scout the well but nearly impossible. At first, Merle didn't quite realise what was happening. But when four days passed and she noticed she hadn't obtained a depth estimate on the well since her dinner with Leon, she started getting suspicious. She usually managed to count the sections that came out of the hole two or three times during the course of a week. Normally, this was when they were brought out to change the bit, but she hadn't seen the bit being changed since before the breakdown. Nor had they conducted any tests that required bringing up the drill stem.

  It was possible that she was just having a bout of bad luck. After all, she didn't spend all her time at the well site. In a normal day, she checked it briefly every three or four hours and if nothing appeared to be happening, she went back to the motel, going for a swim or reading until it was time to check it again. Thus, the drilling pipe could have been brought up several times in the past few days without her seeing it.

  But intuition told her it wasn't bad luck. Leon was behind this, and when she overheard a disjointed conversation on the mobile phone referring to 'Wild Rose' she knew he was. She was Wild Rose and someone was reporting her movements to the site. Obviously they were waiting until she was safely ensconced at the motel before changing the bit. That Leon knew when she was watching was further confirmed when she saw him throw a mocking salute in her direction one afternoon after she had been lying in position for several hours, fruitlessly waiting for the drill stem to come up.

  Merle started spending more time on the hilltop, but it was two days before it looked like her vigilance would pay off. She had just timed the descent of the kelly and jotted it in her notebook, when she trained the spotting scope on the pit of drilling mud that had been pumped from the well. For several minutes she stared at it until she was positive that she was seeing what she thought she was. At last she lowered the scope, convinced that there had been a faint rainbow effect on the surface of the mud.

  'Bingo,' Merle whispered to herself. Although it was a rare occurrence, occasionally oil from a bearing layer would enter the mud stream that was pumped from the hole and, thus, created a rainbow effect on the surface of the mud pit. As she considered the implications of this, Merle knew it was essential that she derive some estimate on the hole depth. There was only one thing she could do. She would have to stay here until they brought the pipe out, but at least it should be soon. Once the site geologist noticed the rainbow, he had various test options open to him, most of which required the removal of the drill stem from the hole.

  Six hours later, Merle was still on the hilltop, having lowered the scope for the umpteenth time that afternoon. That rainbow was there! Why weren't they doing anything about it? She had watched Leon and the new field geologist go over to examine the pit several times in the last few hours. Though they had picked up some rock samples that had been brought up in the drilling mud, they hadn't ordered any tests in the hole or even stopped the drilling momentarily. Was Leon so determined to stop her from finding out about the well that he was deliberately ignoring this indication of oil? It didn't make any sense. Something fishy was going on. Her lips pressed tightly together and she resolved she wasn't budging until they pulled the stem out.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the end, she did move. Once. She returned to the Blazer and took out one of the sleeping bags, as well as all the food and drink she could find. A packet of crackers, two candy bars, and a can of warm beer was hardly an adequate supper, but Merle was determined nothing would drive her from the hilltop until she knew what was going on down at the site.

  It was one of the longest nights Merle had ever spent. The weather co-operated, but the gentle summer night was marred by the presence of millions of mosquitoes and blackflies and unfortunately, there hadn't been any insect repellent in the Blazer. From the amount of blood the little beasts were extracting from her, Merle judged she would be just about dry by morning. Her legs were covered by the sleeping bag, but her face was exposed, and the thin cotton sleeves covering her arms provided little protection from the insects. Nevertheless, she was determined to maintain her surveillance of the well and refused to give in and snuggle into the folds of the sleeping beg. At least she wasn't in any danger of falling asleep as long as the link perishers kept buzzing around her.

  Several hours later the sun came up and the insects departed with the night. Without their intruding presence, Merle found it more and more difficult to stay awake, even though the itch from their bites provided a certain amount of diversion.

  It was mid-morning when the drillers finally started pulling the drill stem from the hole. Merle knew her estimate would be nearly useless in judging at what depth the oil had come from given the number of hours that had lapsed since she had first noticed the slick. She was up here now because she wasn't going to give in to Leon Crane.

  He came out of the office just after the bit had been changed and the rig workers had started lowering the drill stem back into the hole. Merle had entered the number of sections in her notebook and was preparing to re-roll the sleeping bag when she noticed him. He was carrying a large cardboard box and stopped with it by the big, blue garbage container that serviced the site. He set the box on the ground next to the container and scanned the hilltop, as though searching for her. As if he had willed her to do so, Merle locked her gaze on to him.

  Leon stooped down and, opening the box, picked out two metal cans and tossed
them into the garbage receptacle. He repeated the action several times and reluctantly Merle raised her binoculars, a cold chill seeping through her. Leon was throwing away empty oil cans.

  In a frozen trance, Merle watched him return to the office and emerge with another box, identical to the one he had just emptied. As he threw away the first cans from the box Merle laid the binocular aside. She opened her notebook to the recording she had made of the rate of drop of the kelly just before she had seen the rainbow. It had been slow. She had discounted it, assuming they were faking the drop to confuse her.

  Now she knew why they hadn't ordered any tests. For the first time since she was a small child, Merle buried her head in her hands and wept.

  The concrete patio that surrounded the pool was scorching under his bare feet and Leon squinted his eyes against the glare of the midday sun off the water. Thank God the Ferrari had air conditioning. He wouldn't want to have to make the long drive into Calgary this afternoon without it. After his swim, he would have lunch then get started. He had wasted too much time on this project already.

  Striding to the edge of the pool, Leon dived cleanly into its sparkling waters. With powerful strokes he swam his laps, making the turns with racing dives.

  Hopefully, that little trick with the oil yesterday had convinced Merle Halliday she was wasting her time and he wouldn't have to bother coming back out to the site. Lord, but she was obstinate. He had hoped his little talk about rape, especially after it had been reinforced by that scene with Larson, would have sent her scurrying back to Calgary. Unfortunately, she seemed more afraid of that stupid dog than she did of anything else. At least, Laddie Boy was keeping her on the hilltop and not on their doorstep.